RAVE - Desert Island Discs

The longest-running radio program in the world is BBC Radio's "Desert Island Discs".

Each week some public figure gets to slide into the studio and tell us which 8 songs, 1 book and 1 "luxury" they'd want with them if they were stranded on a desert island. Of course, the whole premise failed if you asked stupid questions like "what about electricity, and a CD player?"

There are dozens of reasons for compiling this list: the now extinct titillation of making mix-tapes for girlfriends, the fact that we've just got back from Fiji, and the hatred I have for those Facebook ads where you have to sign up to spam hell in order to pick from someone's list of favorite deodorant scents or ice cream toppings.

I have kept re-visiting this subject over the years (i.e. fretted constantly). What would I pick, in the unbelievably unlikely event that I'd be dragged onto the radio to pontificate about my "Top 10, or 8?"

OK, have to be sensible about this. My first temptation is to start with Motorhead and build the noise up gradually from there. But millions of people and a handful of close friends (all critics) will be cocking their shotguns waiting for a mistake like that. So, I have to have some rules:

#1. More of an objection than a rule: You can't possibly pick THE Top 10. I'd want it to be like "High Fidelity", where John Cusack and Jack Black (and that other, weedy guy), argue over the "Top 3 songs to play at a Klan BBQ". So, Top 10 Post Punk songs would be very different than my Top 10 British Blues songs. But, rules is rules, so HUGE compromises were necessary.

#2. You don't want to fall into the trap of picking stuff that's too obvious - so while I used to think that if I have to pick a strictly limited set of tunes for my desert island delectation, I'd better pick bloody long ones - out go Led Zepp, Lynyrd Skynyrd, along with obvious-and-dreadful U2 and their ilk.

One sobering realization is that, although my "hipster blinkers" convince me I'm keeping pace with what the ankle-biters are listening to now, there's a potentially unhealthy block of ancient stuff in this list!

Any road up (as they probably still say on Coronation Street), you can find the list here.

PS - The Jonas Brothers' pic is ironic. You'll have to listen really closely to hear any of their drivel on my desert island.

RAVE - Glasvegas show in San Francisco

Wowed by Glasvegas on Monday night with Felicia, David and Pavey.

- listen to Daddy's Gone, from Monday night's show
- and the official version

11 days in Paradise (or 8 + 3 days getting there and getting back) - Day 1

Destination Fiji (Yasawa Island, specifically). Left for SF airport around 5pm, Wednesday July 15, thankfully early enough to turn around halfway to come back home and pick up specs (mine) and hay fever tabs (hers), then head back south to SFO again. A short hop (look out for: RANT about airline schedules that allow 1.5 hours for a 45 minute flight, just so their late arrival % is kept lower than it would be if they were honest) to LAX, where within minutes of landing we learn that Air Pacific to Fiji is 12 HOURS LATE!!!!! The implications are capital letter-worthy. The hotel we're staying at on Yasawa, a little island off Fiji's main island ain't cheap, and we're going to miss our first night!

The "good news", according to the airline, is that they're putting us up for the night at the Westin LAX, and our plane will take off in the morning. Being comp'd at a hotel you wouldn't want to stay at under normal circumstances, and less so when it's instead of one you've been looking forward to for months is, um, sub-optimal. A dreary dinner in a dreary airport hotel follows.

Day 2

Skipped dreary breakfast to head back to LAX, where, believe it or not, the plane is even later than its already half a day tardiness.

At last we're on our way, with the flight uninterrupted by anything approaching entertainment.

10 hours later and we're on Fiji's main island, with a scratchy garland around our necks, receiving confirmation of our worst fears. There's only one seaplane transfer to Yasawa per day, and we've missed it by a few hours. The "good news" part deux, is that the airline is comping us a night at Hotel Le Mercure. We were already scheduled to spend the day chilling out here, now it'll be overnight. The proper good news is that our travel agent has worked a deal out with the Yasawa resort that we extend our stay by one night, to make up for the first night we lost. Sound.

So, pizza and a couple beers watching Australia vs France at rugby (oz satellite), and the vacation is kinda started.

Day 3

I haven't missed a day - the jump from Thursday to Saturday is courtesy of the international date line we crossed a few hours ago. Around mid-day our driver picks us up for the short ride to Nadi airport, and our seaplane transfer to Yasawa island.

Airport formalities are nonexistent. We're the only passengers on this flight, so almost immediately we stroll out to our ride. We've been on this plane before, when we made the same journey for Christmas 2006, but it's still a very exciting 30 minutes of skipping over the coral reefs, shark spotting.

Landing on water is even more stomach churning than landing on a regular airstrip. You plop down onto the water and wade ashore, just like Captain Cook (except for the seaplane and the camera and ipod bags we're holding aloft).

We receive our second scratchy garland while a beefy bunch of helpers haul our luggage and assorted sacks of island supplies over their heads, and then we're in the truck bouncing up the rutted track to the other side of the little island, and our home for the next 8 nights.

It's around 3pm when we're unpacked, be-shorted and sipping Fiji Gold by the pool. Change into a slightly more elegant tee-shirt and dinner shorts for 7.30pm dinner. An underwhelming steak dinner in paradise. (Almost a Jimmy Buffet moment there).

Day 4

It's fry-day, as in lollop by the pool, sipping mojitos without syrup, mud slides without ice and pink margharitas without enough of whatever makes them pink.

Giving the job of cocktail mixing to anyone belonging to a group forbidden to drink alcohol is probably a little short-sighted, but the location means you end up kicking back and enjoying it all anyhow.

The infinity pool is f.a.b, as is the weather and my date for this trip.

And who was that teacher who wrote in my term report: "doesn't concentrate in class, will never amount to anything"? -- They ALL did? Come on!

Had dinner served on the front deck of our bure (burr-ray, or house). The idea was a good 'un, but we were somewhat distracted by the Lions versus Christians re-enactment nearby, where a hungry lizard was feasting on the moths attracted to the light on our bure wall.

Fast asleep by 9.30pm, which will likely become the pattern for this vacation.

Day 5

An early brekkie, so that we can be all sorted for our 10am power boat ride to Yawini, the uninhabited island we're picknicking on today.

It's one of the high spots of the vacation. We're dropped ashore with beach mats, umbrella and icebox, and the boat zips off with shouts of "see you in 4 hours" from the crew. Try to take candid pics of her indoors, only to find out that "you can take pictures, but you're not to post anything on Facebook". Deal. I'll sell them on hotasianbabes.com instead.

We get back to the resort in time for a couple hours floating around on a floaty thing in the pool, while finishing off "Ghosts: Confessions Of A Counter Terrorism Agent", the second book I've read so far this trip, and we're not half-way through yet.

Dinner was a not-too-appetizing octopus, and half-decent lamb entree, so an entertaining 1 all draw.

Day 6

Yesterday's picnic was so good, we're here again, this time on "Lovers Beach". And sure enough, not long after we're dropped ashore and the boat leaves, the sky darkens and it pisses with rain. Sat on an icebox under an umbrella in the rain, looking along an otherwise paradisaic beach gets us talking about man versus wild, and what would Bear Grylls' advice be.

Pavey ventured that he would tell us to hike into the forest behind us, retrieving wood for a fire, large leaves for shelter and juicy bugs for sustenance, while I reckoned it'd be safer to stay under the umbrella, eat the sandwiches from our picnic and wait for the boys to arrive in the boat. Pretty much what BG does off camera I bet.

We arrive back in civilization in time for lunch and a snooze. Lines that you would not expect to hear from Scott of the Antarctic.

Pavey's listening to an audio book, "Julie and Julia', the autobiography of a New Yorker who attempts to cook her way through Julia Childs' groundbreaking recipe book.

Having read "A Year of Living Biblically" myself, I realize these authors dispensed with all the hassle of coming up with a plot, and characters, and basically turned their blogs into books.

My initial suggestion, along the lines of ploughing through someone else's book and writing about your experience, was "Mr. & Mrs. Page bump 'n grind their way through the Kama Sutra". Her response is "we'd have to do it using fake names". I'm thinking we'd have to do it using stunt doubles. So, file that one under "potential, but strangely gruelling book ideas".

Much easier would be "Cooking My Way Through The Cheeky Chappie's Recipes: Can Jamie Oliver Really Write, Or Is He Just Another Cockney Wanker?".

Day 7

Snorkelling off one of the reefs is today's big deal. Wade out to the boat for the 30 minute zip up the coast to where the reef is deepest and brightest. However, I must've been bitten by a fat, lethargy-carrying mosquito, as I elect to guard the pool and leave it to Pavey to check on global warming's impact on the local reef.

She says the big blue starfish were a treat, and tasted like chicken.

Day 8

Breezy today. Too breezy to contemplate the 30-minute boat ride to Yawini, the deserted island, for our planned picnic. So, another day ant counting in the hammock on our stretch of beach. I know I work for a multinational technology company, but the name's slipping from my grasp. HAL?

Day 9

Finally sent some postcards today. The mail system is pretty darned marvellous. I can send mail from an island with no roads and intermittent electricity, to the other side of the world, for around $1. Now, if I could invent a machine that dematerializes and then rematerializes humans into postcard sized pieces (pre-stamped and addressed of course) I could revolutionize the cost of travel. Some smartass might point out that the mass of one human is equivalent to several thousand postcards though, so at $1 per card I'll have revolutionized diddly-squat, but they'll be missing the point. I will have succeeded where Jeff Goldblum failed - TWICE. (Hold on, he wasn't in Fly II was he?) As I said, the postal service is pure science fiction.

On a more germain front, today was a gloriously sunny one, which we enjoyed first on our beach, under an umbrella, then on our deck, and then after lunch by the pool. What sunbathers might call a well-balanced bake-off.

Day 10

Last full day in Paradise. Although that would be unfair to the permanent paradise that is our life in San Francisco, making sure that "HAL" and "Iron Man" are kept thriving and profitable.

Back on Yawini, our private island, for the day. Again we saw the lonely white and yellow fish we saw on our first day on this beach. Curiously, he (?) Just swims in a tight circle, nibbling at our fingers and on one brave maneouvre, tugs at the cord holding together Pavey's skimpy bikini bottom. It usually costs me a day or two of "being nice" in order to get a slice of that action, so maybe I'll have to perfect my lonely circling motion in future. Pavey ignores the plot and starts calling the fish Wilson.

Later that night, the scuba-master tells us that "Wilson" is a Sergeant Fish and we should NOT be dangling fingers in front of its row of sharp teeth!

Day 11

Last day [sigh], and after packing, and booking dinner on the main island of Fiji, we trudge off to the beach to board our seaplane.

We still have Nadi to LAX at 10pm tonight, then a hop back to SFO, to arrive bleary eyed several hours before we depart. When Dr Who does this there's always trouble!

RAVE - Barrow's Boys, by Fergus Fleming

How a British civil servant came up with the idea to keep no-longer-fighting military types busy, by directing them to find the North West Passage, the source of The Nile, and the frosty Poles.

When the Napoleonic wars ended, demobilized naval officers were kicking their heels around England, looking for stuff to keep them gainfully employed.

The Admiralty appointed Second Secretary John Barrow to keep them busy, so he assigned them tasks of exploration.

For the next 30 years, Barrow's teams of captains, first mates and other ranks (but mostly well-bred captains) set about their journeys of discovery.

This is history that reads like the adventure stories they really are.

REVIEW - La Folie

Perhaps a little too eclectic for some, definitely something to be sampled on special occasions, La Folie is very French, and somewhat of an acquired taste.

Has that put you off?

There are several more approachable French restaurants in town - L'Ardoise, Chez Papa, Chez Spencer, even RN74, to name le quatre.

You could therefore dine at many better French restaurants before sitting down at La Folie and wondering whether you can stomach the Frog's Legs with Frog's Leg mousse Cannelloni, or Warm Pig Feet, Sweetbread and Lobster Terrine. 

You can tell my heart's not really in this one. La Folie definitely doesn't warrant a RANT, but I can't bring myself to RAVE about it. 

RAVE - Incanto

The mandate from Incanto, "we use every part of the beast" can be off-putting, but as long as you don't dwell too much on whether it's right eat the thymus and pancreas glands of animals, or Tuna heart, you will enjoy it here.

And you don't actually have to order anything off the butcher's beaten track if you don't want to.

The focus on quality at this Noe Valley gem is second to none, and it shows in the little touches - the descriptive wine tags on your glass, the home-made breads, the Reidel glasses.

I don't know if this is the best Italian experience in San Francisco, but whether you prefer this or Delfina depends on whether you like your food edgy or comfortable.

RANT - The DMV as a metaphor for what's wrong with America

NOTE for my English friends, DMV is the Dept of Motor Vehicles, performing the same fine job as the DVLC (Driver & Vehicle Licensing Center).

DMV puts the EFF in inefficiency.

I'm writing this in my Blackberry, so I'm clearly expecting a wait.

There are probably a million such musings. After all, what else are you going to do while otherwise wasting half a day shuffling around in a stinky hall? No, I'm not talking about Country dancing, just trying to register a car.

First of all, there are no empty parking spaces at the DMV. That's like having no cutlery at a restaurant!

There's a high proportion of down-and-outs, ruffians and rapscallions in line. Is it really this demographic that's buying and registering cars. Or more to the point, is it really this demographic that's so hit by the recession that their collective disenfranchisement is bringing down Detroit?

There's also a high proportion of apparent foreigners. Even the DMV "greeter" isn't sporting English as his first language. Now, I'm not saying that "foreigner" equals "down-and-out". Perish the thought. I am one of those down-and, er, foreigners. I don't know what this proportion says, but by the time you consider all the foreigners down-and-outs, ruffians and rapscallions, precious few middle-class Obama supporters are in evidence today.

Anyhow, 1 hour standing in line buys me the news that I have the wrong paperwork. Have to come back tomorrow with some new paperwork and do it all again. Sigh.

Surely some clever consultant has had a look at the workflow (or lack of it) here?

There's a crazy screaming coming from the other end of the hall, momentarily distracting everyone from their own plight.

Day Two, and today's excuse for the line out into the parking lot (still with no available spaces) is "we can't give you a number, because the computer's overloaded". Now, I was convinced that yesterday's lack of movement was because the only computing power in the building was the Blackberry in my hand. So, everyone's told to each take a torn off scrap of paper on which the mastermind behind this latest initiative has written a letter. Then, we have to move into a parallel line that's even longer, to wait for the same freaking guy to issue us a number. Various opinions are offered from both lines: "Unf*******believable!", "These motherf****** don't know what they're doing!", "This is f****** retarded!" (that last insight from a woman with no teeth), "This motherf****** is out of control!"

Suddenly, everyone in line is a computer expert, especially the guy with a horn on his head. Seriously (in every sense of the word) he has a boney horn sticking out of his forehead.

Oh, the line moved! Nah, it was the western continental plate shifting a few microns.

I can smell weed. I'm in line at the DMV and the woman behind me has just lit a bowl! Must be medicinal, but whatever, someone's enjoying the wait.

They just called B120. Only 60 more to go before me! With a bit of luck I'll be out of here before the holiday weekend starts.

Stepped outside for some air, only to have to listen to a "conversation" between a couple of drunks swigging from containers in brown paper bags. Might listen in for a few stock tips, or at least a heated debate about Afghan versus Lebanese.

Back inside, and someone's holding a dog right underneath a sign that says "No Animals. No Smoking". Now, if that dog lights up I'm going to find security, although that'll probably be harder than finding a midget at NBA camp.

Bugger! I've just realized there are four series of letters and numbers being called, so my B180 might not be 60th in line after B120. Where's the Vicodin?

Someone could make a killing selling cold drinks from an ice box here. There are no vending machines, no TVs showing Wimbledon, no respite whatsoever from the tedium. Except for the floorshow. I've just seen the oldest gay bikers outside of Palm Springs. Top to toe leathers and silly hats. I hope I'm still going when I'm that age. And I hope I have the sense to not dress like that. You can always count on San Francisco.

In a country with 200 million cars, surely this could all be done online? Imagine if you could only buy an iPhone by lining up overnight outside an Apple store! What's that? You do have to line up outside an Apple store to buy an iPhone?

I've just seen the guy who "served" me yesterday wandering around behind the counter in the same tee-shirt he was wearing yesterday. Gives me an idea for another post: "The stinky tee-shirt as a metaphor for what's wrong with America".

What! Suddenly there are no staff at any of the 27 counters. Did someone call a strike? Don't tell me everyone takes their lunch at the same time. Maybe they're all out back in a customer service class.

Another scary thought: a percentage of the assorted crazies, whack jobs and certifiably insane are here to take their driving tests. Knowing well the caliber of the group to which they aspire, in a couple of hours most of these troubled souls will be causing mayhem on Oak Street.

Now I think about it, I realize the DMV is not a desert of efficiency because it's a government agency, but because of the customers it serves. If this was a place where middle-class white Americans had to line up in order to get licenses for their ride-on lawn mowers, there would be hell to pay. The place would grind to a complete standstill under the weight of clamoring and complaining suburbanites. No, these down-and-outs and foreigners put up with the parlous state of the DMV because that's what they do - put up with stuff.

Post-script

It took me 2 days, a total of 5 hours to get a temporary registration for my car. I have to go back in a couple weeks when I get the title documents for the car. I'd say "God Bless America", but I don't want to blaspheme.

RANT - People who carry huge bunches of keys on their belts

It was hard to find an image that showed this phenomenon in real life, but you know who I'm talking about.

What is it with these people who have 40 or 50 keys clipped to their belts while they're traipsing down the street? Surely there aren't that many doors they need to open at a moment's notice?